Recent guest opinions by David Takahashi and Lisa Morzel continue the evaluation of Boulder’s municipalization effort without actually evaluating the Muni history of bad leadership, legal decisions and financial shenanigans. Those failures are documented in the 24 Articles of the Muni Naughty List that are presented in nine two-minute videos at tinyurl.com/MuniArticles. The full list of 87 council presentations since 2014 is at https://tinyurl.com/MuniHistory.

One of those financial shenanigans is the fact that two of the most expensive components of the muni are stranded cost and going concern. Those items have been treated as zero in all financial calculations for over eight years. Who starts a business and treats the highest costs as zero? Boulder does, that’s who. The muni leadership says they don’t, but they do.

Here is the counterpoint (full truth) about Xcel, Boulder and other public utilities. Xcel is a highly regulated, investor-owned utility. They don’t get to do anything without critical review by both the Public Utilities Commission and the Colorado Office of Consumer Council. Boulder, on the other hand, would be an unregulated monopoly. What about Boulder’s claims that it would be a well-run utility? Note that since the 2013 floods, our Boulder water utility rates have gone up 87% for stormwater, 42% for wastewater and 12% for drinking water. The floods were indeed massive, but previous deferred maintenance and rate increases demonstrate a poorly run utility that was not reliable, resilient or well-maintained.

Since the muni effort started in 2011, Xcel added renewables equivalent to 10 times Boulder’s electric usage. It would be 5.5 years before Boulder would ever flip a switch on a utility, and we have already spent or lost over $33 million and 10 years.

Xcel rates are lower than 75% of the other municipal utilities in Colorado. Utilities with lower rates are burning about 60% more coal, are about 100 years old and have levels of hydropower that are far more than Boulder will ever have. Xcel’s rates are lower than 96% of co-ops.

Mr. Takahashi fails to list the dozens of public utilities that have failed, or that any Xcel customer can be 100% renewables today at minimal cost, especially compared to the carbon tax we in Boulder are already paying.

Everyone wants to be powered by 100% renewables, and anyone can promise to achieve it. Xcel is committed to 80% renewables by 2030 and 100% by 2050. We can easily accelerate that by collaboration instead of endless litigation. Some public utilities achieve 100% simply by buying renewable energy certificates (RECs). If you own the REC, you alone get credit for those renewables. This is just one option that Boulder could pursue along with solar incentives and wind incentives. You really don’t need to be rich or in a Boulder monopoly to achieve 100% renewables. I use very little electricity and have had solar since 2011. I have a solar lease and didn’t pay a penny for material, installation or permitting, and I currently pay a monthly lease that saves me about $6 a month. This was done using solar incentives. I use about 100kWh a month partially because every light in my house is LED except my stove light. If I didn’t have solar panels it would only cost me $1.50 a month (WindSource) to be 100% electric renewables.

Boulder collects $8 million a year in carbon taxes (check your electric bill). About $2.2 million per year is what we collect to pursue the muni, with an additional $7 million bonus collected on top of that in 2017. We need to end this waste of time and money. If we applied just the $2.2 million to solar incentives, wind incentives, RECs and energy reduction (like free LEDs) we could start carbon reduction today, not five years from today. If we collaborated with Xcel we would be a model that every small town could follow instead of a cautionary tale that should frighten any community.

Everyone should realize that when we get arguments for the muni, the counterpoint facts are missing. The true cost of the muni would easily be $500 to $750 million dollars. The muni is running out of money again and will soon ask for, or just take, more. The muni was supposed to be running by 2017; it is now 2020.

Guest opinions are submitted to the Daily Camera by readers. Guest opinion writers do not work for and are not paid by the Camera. Their views are their own. As a proponent of the rigorous exercise of free expression, the Camera opinion pages are open to a broad range of voices, even those that state opinions readers might find objectionable.